Conservation Music

Stage 4: Transition to Scale

Conservation Music is applying lessons learned, relationships built, and media produced over 4 years to equip musicians, activists, educators, and everyday people with the tools they need to create continuous positive impact through music globally.

Problem

We are currently left with 11 years to turn the tide on climate change and biodiversity loss and curtail ongoing humanitarian disaster. Musicians worldwide have been frustrated by their lack of ability to do anything for the people or the planet, facing a lack of continuity, results, and scalability. Millions depend on their natural surroundings to survive and provide for their families, yet they are often last to hear about what is expected, and what they can do to adapt.

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Solution

Music has been proven to engage the human mind in profound ways. We produce world-class song and music video productions which integrate into workshops and curricula that local Conservation Music youth chapters use to directly engage with and distribute to communities and schools across their countries, on top of the broadcast and online engagement. Our local chapters provide a continuous resource to the music, education, and environmental spheres at the national and regional level.

Target Beneficiaries

Mission and Vision

Through the catalytic power of music, we confront environmental collapse and humanitarian disaster in the developing world and beyond. Our vision is a global community that stewards the Earth, in which the memorable, emotional, and unifying power of music contributes to the balance between humankind, nature, and society.

Innovation Description

Conservation Music equips performing artists with the tools they need to confidently reach their listeners with this crucial information. We produce world-class song and music video productions which integrate into workshops and curricula that local Conservation Music youth chapters use to directly engage with and distribute to communities and schools across their countries, on top of the broadcast and online engagement. Our local chapters provide a continuous resource to the music, education, and environmental spheres at the national and regional level. Our global team acts as an on-the-ground catalyst and a strategic guide to this music-driven network of organizers, activists, and educators. We produce educational songs, engaging listeners’ thoughts and emotions with relatable lyrical stories. A subtitled music video accompanies each song production for broader engagement. Recorded content is scalable and transcends timelines and borders long after the song has been sung. We partner with our chapters, broadcasters, events, and the artists themselves to keep impressions and engagement high. Our long term global impact involves providing our tailor-made tools, handbooks, structures, technology, and existing content to activists, musicians, educators, and members of the public all over the world. Globally, scores of people are ready to leverage the catalytic power of music for the benefit of the planet and the people who depend on it.

Competitive Advantage

Typically, music has been used for development in two different ways: to raise money for other organizations involved in a cause, or to raise awareness during a single ticketed event, or a series of such events. We have yet to encounter another organization or movement focused on continuous impact through music. Our own approach is focused on education and advocacy, reaching students and the public with information, and engaging public will towards both grassroots and political level change.
On top of this, our work to date has been geographically focused on the frontlines of climate change. Southern Africa is already facing historic droughts, village-consuming floods, cyclones and other natural disasters out of season and out of scale. This is resulting in migration, xenophobic attacks, sex slavery, and other human trafficking. Musicians in this part of the world must engage with the issue at hand, and we are there to help them do so as effectively as possible.
Lastly, whereas music has been used to confront humanitarian issues many times in the past, environmental efforts through music have been much more sporadic. Through our work, we are uniting a musical effort for the Earth across borders, genres, languages, colors, and cultures. We are doing this in a way that is designed to be continuous, accessible, and measurable.

Planned Goals and Milestones

Our plans include developing a global network of musicians and performing artists to bring the power of music and musical performance to this cause, expanding our local chapter structure throughout eastern and southern Africa, extending our approach to South America and Asia, and developing an extensive environmental school curriculum and set of classroom resources with educational experts and in collaboration with other NGO’s, Within two years we plan to have a presence on three continents, with at least four locally staffed and directed chapters in each, a collection of celebrity artists as Conservation Music Ambassadors, and a full curriculum module of at least fifteen lessons written for two age appropriate levels, piloted in Lesotho and subsequently improved as a framework to be scaled to other countries.

Funding Goal

240,000

New Feature

Developing a tablet and app based eco-musical education system for schools.